Yes, itís all true. Well, it kind of depends on your bike. Some motorcycles with great big flywheels and big gears, like many Harleys and some BMW Boxers, need the clutch Ė or at least a little clutch Ė for nearly every shift. Most sportbikes only need you to use the clutch to pull away from stops and for the shift from first to second gear.

At slow, around-town speeds, we mostly use at least a little clutch to shift anyway; you donít need to pull the lever all the way in every time you use it. But if youíre steadily accelerating, and especially at WOT (wide open throttle), youíll find that after second gear, if you roll the throttle closed just enough to unload the driveline, for just a split second, with your toe pressing on the lever, then third gear will slip right in without using the clutch at all. Fourth, 5th and 6th will slip in even easier since the gaps between them are increasingly smaller. Done smoothly, itís no harder on your gearbox than using the clutch.

Yes, although I clutchless up and down from the stop and right before the stop. My experience is that I never notice a difference between gears going clutchless but do, rarely, hit N when going down to 1st from second in tight downhill twist situation; have to hit 1st slightly harder if I can only remember.

Clutchless is fine most of the time, but all bikes & transmissions are different it shouldn't take long to find the sweet spots. However pre loading the shift lever as suggested above is not good this will increase shift fork wear significantly.